A web log of Snat in this fucked up world!

Picking the right host

For the last 8 years I have hosted this very website on so many websites that if Tweaked for your Pleasure was a whore that it would have to many sexually transmitted diseases and likely would be laying on the floor dying while trying to pass on it’s last breath. Picking a right web host is very important as your website WILL depend purely on how good your web host is.

I am sure if you have looked around for a web host before what you roughly check for is speed and price and I would bet that most people will not look for more then that. So today I am going to talk about what I look for in a web host so that if you are looking for a web host that you will not get screwed over.

Price

Now I will not deny this as cost is one of the biggest factor in choosing a web host but you need to remember the old classic saying – “You get what you pay for”. Now if I was looking for a standard shared hosting account I would first ignore ALL web hosts that offers unlimited everything as unlimited does not exist. I am sure many will debate saying they will keep adding hard drives and hard drives but I am more then sure (and their terms of service vaguely says it as well) that if I was using 100GB a day or something or even 10GB hard drive that my account would be killed quickly then a fly on crack.

So be careful with it. If the price seems to low, it likely is not as good service as it may look like.

Server Location

Another big important to me is where the physical server I am hosted on is physically located. Now I like having it hosted in the United Kingdom or Ireland (or Israel depending if it is Snat.co.il) but I would not want to be hosted somewhere in Iran. The reason mainly is laws. I am more then sure Iran would completely agree to hosting my website within one of their datacenters and the last thing I want is for the content suddenly change to praising Muhammad or something rather then what I actually post.

Same goes with staff. I would only want to go to a company those ethics and much like my own or will not care about what I post (as long as it ain’t illegal). Reason again is I could be hosted in the United Kingdom but could have some Iranian staff which may be upset by my content and go on a quest to remove it as it talks “bad” of Islam. Same reason I would never EVER want to be hosted in Utah for.

Bailing & Backups

Now this is one of the most important things I look at when I am deciding on a web host. At the end of the day how the business works is not my problem and all I care about is my website being online. For this reason you want to look at paying monthly rather then yearly. The reason for this is so if something happens to the webhost you can bail out of there with little money lost.

Also I check to see how I can bail out of there. The main way is just SCP and keeping backups but you always need to make sure you have a plan encase something does happen. The same goes with backups. When I look around for a web host I always check if they make backups.

The reason for this is once again encase something happens so that your website can be restored. I stress this once and once again, always make your OWN backups. A web host is easily able to make backups but it is also easily able to lose them or refused them to you and I know, I have been there (Saidcom/Saidhost anyone ?),

Support

Now the final thing I look for in a web host is support. There are two things I care about when it comes to support and the first is how long to reply (and sort out) a urgent ticket that is related to the host having a problem. The second is now experience they actually are. I have went with web hosts who had no idea of what they was talking about and later I find out they are only a reseller (also another one, rarely go with a reseller if possible) and can not actually do anything.

So that is what I look for in a web host and if you got a few points, do let me know in the comments.